NHL Game Night: 10-12-13 Penguins at Lightning

Disappointing, as the Lightning leave at least 1 point on the ice against a quality opponent.

PIT-5
TB-4

Anders Lindback allowed 5 goals on 26 shots for the loss. Maybe there were no softies tonight, but the same critique of Lindback applies. Playing a team as good as Pittsburgh, you need your goaltender to be more than, "not the reason you lost." He needs to make key saves at key times and be "one of the reasons you won."

What a horrific ending to a night that showed so much promise. The Lightning, on balance, played really well for 40 minutes in this game. The team really looked like they were skating well, playing crisp hockey, and looked like they could compete with an elite team like Pittsburgh. And then they came out flat as a pancake in the Third Period. The did manage to fight back to get a late goal to potentially salvage a point, but squandered that with a bad late penalty. It's a tough result for a young team like this to take after doing a lot of good things in this game.

Radko Gudas was -2 with 2 shots, 2 hits, and 1 blocked shot in 24:13. I think the minutes he received was more reflective of his play than the minus rating he ended up with.

Tyler Johnson had a helper, 2 shots, 1 hit, and he was 44% on draws in 14:04.

Alex Killorn had 1 goal and 1 assist, 4 penalty minutes, 2 shots, and 1 blocked shot in 21:17. Arguably, he was the Lightning's best player tonight.

Andrej Sustr had 1 shot and 1 hit in 12:19 as the Lightning coaching staff were careful to protect their rookie d-man from the likes of Crosby and Malkin. He played well in the minutes he had, but there was no reason to throw Andrej to the wolves.

Richard Panik had 2 assists, but was also -1 with 2 really bad penalty minutes to go along with 2 hits in 20:46. He's such a frustrating mixed bag. There were some ridiculous neutral zone turnovers, and then he turns around and makes a great hustle play to make up for it. He makes a great pass on the power play to Killorn to make a game tying goal and then takes a lazy, selfish tripping call that allows Pittsburgh to take the win. I'm absolutely torn with Panik, and I suspect the coaching staff is, too. He gets 20+ minutes of ice time and gets to play on the second line and on the PP because he has a wide-ranging skill set that allows him to affect the outcome of a game in numerous ways. Unfortunately, as we saw tonight, his game hasn't ripened yet and some of the ways he can affect a game aren't necessarily positive.

Pierre-Cedric Labrie had 2 hits in 4:05. This was probably the least effective game of the year for the 4th line.